- Blooms & BrewsDate: Thursday, May 9Time: 6 to 8 p.m. Cost: $70, member; $85, nonmemberMen can make a flower arrangement for that special mom in their lives. Info/registration: 216-721-1600, Ext. 100

- BotaniCool Kids CampDates: June 17 to 21; June 24 to 28Cost: TBABotaniCool Kids Camp is a fun day camp experience for children ages 5-8, held at the Garden. All activities are led by well-trained, knowledgeable, and slightly silly garden educators.

Spring flowers greet visitors to the Big Spring exhibit at the Cleveland Botanical Garden. The gardens, located in University Circle, are promoting big seasonal events to draw more visitors.ERIE TIMES-NEWS

The Cleveland Botanical Garden welcomed spring in grand style this year with a trip with Alice to a Wonderland of beautiful flowers while the sky, ground and, in some cases moods, of Lake Erie were quite gray.

The modern architecture of the building, featuring triangles of glass to allow the sunshine in throughout the building, is welcoming along an area of Cleveland that has been revitalized in recent years as an art center. So revitalized, indeed, that you need to be prepared to search around for parking when all of the area's museums are filled with culture-seekers.

Nevertheless (just look for Case Western's public parking for a short walk to the garden and the other museums), you'll be dazzled once you step inside and are greeted with all the blooms of daffodils, tulips, hydrangea and more. Follow the oversized flowers to a magical world of The Mad Hatter's Tea Party or the Ladybug Labyrinth. But you'll have to hurry, Big Spring closes today.

If you aren't in the mood to race the 90 minutes to Cleveland to catch the final day, don't worry. The Botanical Garden offers plenty for the rest of the growing season.

The permanent exhibits include explorations of dessert and rain forests.

The deserts is filled with succulents, but it is the rain forest with the butterflies and plants native to Costa Rica that will catch your fancy (if not the flutterbyes). Adults and children alike can learn how certain plants have adapted to the rain forest canopy, allowing flowers to bloom even with the most limited of sunlight. Travel to the top of the canopy, either by stairs or by an elevator, to overlook the greenery below.

Here you will be alone with just the butterflies, and a few other visitors who brave the short trip to the top. Not unless you travel to the treetops of the country itself, usually in a tram or by zip line, will you get the same experience. It's just breathtaking.

As the weather warms, you can take a trip outside to the many gardens that ring the area. You can find peace in the Japanese garden, enjoy the scents of the rose garden, stand among the imaginative creatures in the topiary garden and let your inner child (and your children) run loose in the Hershey Children's Garden. The Children's Garden, the first of its kind in Ohio when constructed in 1999, has plenty of input by and for kids. There is an interactive water feature and many of the plants were chosen to attract butterflies, caterpillars and birds.

The Cleveland Botanical Garden is a wonderful part of any day trip to Cleveland, which should include trips to the neighboring museums, including Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland and the Children's Museum of Cleveland.

The vitality of the area may be one of the reasons that the Cleveland Botanical Garden is reporting record attendance of more than 160,000 people last year. Glow, the Botanical Garden's holiday event that debuted at the end of 2012 and gave it a surge of 28 percent over the prior year's holiday attendance. Big Spring is part of that continuing effort to have big. family-friendly. seasonal events.

"Cleveland Botanical Garden continues to blossom into an ever-changing destination where people find inspiration, enrichment and fun," says Natalie Ronayne, executive director, in the year-end report. "Looking ahead, we're committed to making the Garden a place where even more people can enjoy even more unforgettable experiences. LEL

- Blooms & BrewsDate: Thursday, May 9Time: 6 to 8 p.m. Cost: $70, member; $85, nonmemberMen can make a flower arrangement for that special mom in their lives. Info/registration: 216-721-1600, Ext. 100

- BotaniCool Kids CampDates: June 17 to 21; June 24 to 28Cost: TBABotaniCool Kids Camp is a fun day camp experience for children ages 5-8, held at the Garden. All activities are led by well-trained, knowledgeable, and slightly silly garden educators.